If you’re around my age (21 years old) or younger, than you’ll more or less enjoy this Flash game called PongOut. The game has two screens: one for Pong and the other for Breakout. The objective of the game is to play both games – at the same time.

Back in the 70′s, Pong was a fairly fun game even though it seems as a ridiculously slow-paced game now. With so much stimulus around us we just can’t use enough of our brains.

PongOut makes an excellent comparison of how attention-deficit the younger generations are compared to the older generations. And what makes this game fun is that it challenges players to focus on two relatively complicated things at once, each of which has it’s own gameplay.

Now, if only there was a third screen…

Peter Kao

I came across an article from Wired magazine today that explains how ADD is becoming the”official brain syndrome of the information age.” Ironically, while reading the article I had about a dozen distractions and a burning desire to stop reading and send off an email or two.

Could we all have ADD?

Yes. It’s entirely possible that ADD is simply an evolution of the mind to access and decipher the plethora of information that bombards our daily routine. We are born in an age where stimulation is freely accessibly. We have the Internet to stimulate us when we’re bored, and we have TV to stimulate us when we’re bored of the Internet, and we have homework to stimulate us when we’re bored of both, although the latter is sometimes compulsory. This extreme load of stimulation applied throughout our lives keeps us constantly busy and when we run into situations where our minds have to sit in one place, we feel the urge to do more. It doesn’t even matter what it is. We just want to keep ourselves busy.

Here’s the article again: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.06/interrupt-driven_pr.html
What do you think? Do we all have ADD? Or is it just Waterloo students?

Peter Kao